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Impermanence is the first solo presentation of works by Keqing Chen (b.1992), it brings together new ceramic and video pieces Chen has created in the past two years to share her narratives and exploration of personal choice. These new works have emerged from her journeys to Jordan, Israel, and Tibet in 2015, during which she immersed herself in the landscapes, objects, religions, and cultures. They embody her reoccurring fascination in the Buddhist ideology of samsara, the inevitable decay of all matter and existence, as well as all unpredictabilities in life.

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Chen’s works, each unique, can be an art object, a decoration, a functional medium, a human body, a metaphor, or a cultural reference, and be seen as a way of exploring her sculptural sensibility. Her works allude to sources diverse as minimalism, Japanese ceram- ics, Buddhism ideology, geometric sculpture, architecture, horticulture, and silent film.

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Individuality and dramas are ruptured by 3,000 hand-crafted ceramic flowers of 'Samsara' (2016) at the gallery entrance. Naturally-sized, whimsical, personal: more than fifteen types of flowers are arranged in the same life cycle starting from buds, unfolding into bloom before becoming withered petals. Each flower or petal is independent while the piece as a whole is continuous and cyclical. The number three thousand makes reference to Sahasra cosmology in Buddhism, where one thousandfold minor universes constitute a middle universe, and a collection of one thousand middle universes form our entire world, or the great trichilliocosm. The monochrome installation also results in a disorienting tem- poral and spatial effect, inviting the audience to simultaneously observe the differences and resemblances between the parts and reflect on their experience and journey to date.

'Blowing' (2016), inspired by origami, appears soft but rigid, their progression in colour and the glazed to the matte finish surface, while the geometric shape hints at another dimension. Here, the artist explores different types of porcelain clay and structure, form- ing another cyclical presentation of self. Conversely, 'Impermanence' (2016) and 'Walking Shadow' (2017), with their minimal yet dramatic narratives, are video works resemble a more personal side of Chen. Projecting onto the spinning 'Kaleidoscope' (2016), the geometric composition of the ceramic plates and playfulness of the video installation as whole calls to mind characteristics of postmodernist art.

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Starting from a vision of the world as a place of purity and strength but also conflict and fragility, Impermanence is the artist’s act of freedom and resistance, inviting us to reflect on ourselves, nature, and the meaning of time.